Greenway or 'Grey'way?

Local landscape architect Bill Eubanks proudly says he has a “vested interest in Byrnes Downs.”
For more than a decade, Eubanks has called the up-and-coming neighborhood home. Imagine his excitement when his Mt. Pleasant-based landscape architecture and civil engineering firm was hired to provide its expertise on an age-restricted housing project located on his neighborhood’s side door.
“I immediately asked to be put on the project,” says Eubanks. “I am not a NIMBY.”
The project is a proposed active senior-living apartment complex to be located on a roughly 5-acre verdant swath along the West Ashley Greenway, behind the Harris Teeter grocery store, on the grounds of the former Coburg Dairy.
The company trying to build the apartment complex is the Charleston-based firm Greystar, which also happens to be the largest apartment management company in America, with over $13 billion in assets worldwide.
The project would build just fewer than 200 units for active seniors, giving them access to the greenway, the nearby stores and churches and library, allowing “boomer” generation-members to age in place in the community.
But some of his neighbors worry that the project will bring more congestion to their quaint little streets, and clog the intersection of Coburg Drive and Savannah Highway.
Geoff Richardson has lived in Byrnes Downs for years, too, and owns Lava Salon right around the corner.
Richardson has led the fight for many improvements to the adjacent Avondale Pointe area, and has hosted a variety of events in the commercial triangle, most notably ones featuring the stores’ alley of graffiti art.
“My gut reaction is that they should not be able to go ahead with this project … without serious professional infrastructure improvements being put in place,” says Richardson, who pledged he would further study the issue.
Richardson stresses that that he very much respects Eubanks and the work he does, and that it makes him less worried with him on the job. Eubanks received a “Westie” from this publication for his past work on improving the greenway.
City planning directo Jacob Lindsey says that the project appears to be the same “golden cow” that has drawn seniors in droves to places like Hilton Head – where they can ride their bikes or walk to just about anything they need or want.
Lindsey says no official proposal from Greystar has been submitted to the city, but that he has been aware of the project for several months. He says some of the company’s consultants had met with city officials recently.
With the land zoned General Business, Lindsey says he expects Greystar will present the project as a PUD, or planned urban development, which provides certain latitude and strictures in terms of the project’s scope and uses.
Greystar, despite repeated attempts, was not available for comment.
City Councilman Bill Moody says the project represents one of the “least impactful” uses of the land.
Already being zoned for General Business, Moody points out that the land could be used for everything from more retail, to doctor’s offices, to a slightly lower number of apartments without the city’s input.
But with the expected PUD designation, the city can help guide and perhaps improve the project, he says.
Sources familiar with the project say the project already includes several key concessions from Greystar, including a request to actually lower the number of parking spaces to be allowed, and the inclusion of 10 percent of the units being designated for lower “workforce” housing rates.
Eubanks says the project would also include improvements to the greenway.
But others still want more.
David Nauheim, a lawyer who lives in the Ashley Forest Neighborhood on the other side of Savannah Highway, has written a letter to Mayor John Tecklenburg asking him to oppose the project in favor of using city funds to buy the land and turn it into a park.
Nauheim has asked the mayor to consider buying the entire Coburg Dairy parcel, which is over 50 acres, from the Hanckel family – some of whom still live on the grounds – and creating a waterfront park for the public.
Moody, who represents that part of West Ashley, says that there is little chance of that happening, as the city doesn’t currently have the money to further develop the 10-mile linear greenway park as it is.
Officials say the earliest construction could get approved for the parcel and would be near the end of the calendar year.